


Mouth of a Wormhole

by egg_murder



Series: Polychronological [1]
Category: Ars Paradoxica (Podcast), Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Gen, Implied Time Travel, Patrick Gill is a Dick, Physics, an Ars PARADOXICA au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-11-12 04:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18003566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egg_murder/pseuds/egg_murder
Summary: After finding himself waking up in the aftermath of a failed experiment in time, Brian David Gilbert has to deal with the solitude of the small New Mexican town, Rancho. His work only gets more stunted when the power goes out as someone is sent to babysit him. Maybe the past isn't so bad, at least he gets a janky tape recorder out of it. (And maybe a friend too.)





	Mouth of a Wormhole

     Brian looks at the recorder again, deciding to start another audio log thing. He hits the record button, feeling awkward. He hasn't done this in a couple of months, because he was busy working on the new project for POLYGON. "Uh, hi. This is the thing, the...journal, thing? It's January 17th, 1944. It's a Monday and it's fucking cold." He shivers after he finishes the sentence. Brian wishes he could return to the giant pile of blankets in his lab, but alas, he had to leave them there. He rubs his arms with his hands in an attempt to heat himself up before continuing. "There's not central heating in the house. I've already asked to put in a work order, but it seems like every GI is off on other assignments. It always seems like there's a swarm of them buzzing about, like bees, but never when you _actually_ need them," he stops for a second, pushing his bangs back upon his head, double checking the monster of a recorder is still on.

     "I was able to scrounge up a couple'a blankets from the infirmary, but I can only make myself a blanket cocoon so thickly and still work." He leans back into his chair for a second, pulling his cardigan and lab coat closer to his body, internally cursing the 40s for their terrible temperature regulation in homes. He decides to change the topic before he talks about the things they have in the future, don't want to give the people listening to the tape any ideas and take away great inventions from the original people, that's what he has been trying to avoid. "My first few months here have been...not _that_  bad." He pauses, deciding to loom on the fallacies and he should be honest, "I take that back, it's been a miserable couple months. Like, sure, when I first got here they welcomed me with open arms, but ever since the second week or so, I can feel myself being frozen out!" He pauses, letting his words sink in for a second.

     "That pun was definitely not intended but I'm keeping it." He picks at his nails, formulating his next words carefully, his anger bubbling under the surface. His anxiety sits in his stomach like a stone, tempting to bring up memories that Brian wants to forget. "I mean, I have never seen a more hostile group of people in my life! None of them will speak to me unless they are commanded to by the Director! My lab assistants spend one day with me, speak to me in the tersest of tones, and then refuse to come in the next day! The room was full of men and women that are so far removed from any concept I have of a 'computer' that I barely understand, by the way! They just glare at me! Staring me down until I leave the room." He finishes with a huff. He is shaking, his hands clenched on his lap, knuckles white against the ring on his middle finger and the slightly yellowed labcoat.

     Getting out some of his thoughts felt good, freeing, refreshing. If anyone expected him to time travel and not have about a thousand different thoughts about the situation, then they didn't know Brian. He used to be able to vent to his roommates, his sister (Laura) and old college bandmate (Jonah), about all of his problems. Just now thinking about them makes him depressed, he misses them, he misses his cats, he misses his ukulele. Venting is a healthy thing for him to do and if he has to do it without feedback and advice that desperately needed, then so be it. Brian stops picking at his nails and continues, "Even the townsfolk stop talking when I walk into the room! And like, it isn't like there aren't any relations whatsoever, there is! I've seen it from my lab! Everyone else throws dinner parties, they drink and dance and I'm shut out! I'm not saying I'm the life of the party but I'm still the one frozen out! Pun not intended this time! It feels like my first year at Johns Hopkins all over again." He takes a breath, letting himself curl into a lanky ball on the leather chair. Brian's composure is slowly creeping back towards him, his temper getting the best of him in this stressful situation.

     His emotional control is shaky at best right now but at least he is getting it out. "You know, at first I thought there was an order not to talk to me. It would have been cruel, to bring me here and lock me up like I'm some pariah. I'm trapped in a town full of the smartest people in the country and I'm not allowed to speak!?" He deflates for a moment, "I mean, I'm from the future so it logically makes sense. I understand why they would want to keep me locked away in a Rapunzel tower, it's better to avoid paradoxes in every situation. Keep the futureman locked away, for the betterment of the universe." Brian sighs, picking at the sides of his thumbs, a nervous habit he had picked up from Jonah.

     "But a few weeks ago, I just snapped. I couldn't stand the silence anymore. It, it brought up the barge." He is silent, pushing back all of the thoughts before Rancho. "So I stormed into the Director's office, well, I actually stormed into the administration building and demanded to see the Director. The receptionist said he wouldn't be back for another three days. So I left and came back when he was in, got the directions from the receptionist and demanded that the guard let me into the office. That's when I actually stormed into the Director's office." He sinks into his chair a little bit more at the embarrassing memory, why is he like this? He shivers off the feelings and urges himself to finish the story. "I was ready to yell at him about the injustice of the situation, but it turns out, there was no order in place. Everyone...just hates me. Yep, just like Johns Hopkins." He is quiet for a second, continuing to fidget with his hands. Another shiver goes through his body as the cold is building up in his room, he really needs central heating again.

     "All of these people here, I can feel like they don't trust me. They have zero information about me, and I can't exactly tell them anything about New York. I must give off something to make them think something is off, or maybe it's how I dress or, I don't know! I should be used to that kind of mindset when it comes to impressions of me, but it still hurts." Brian takes a breath, a change of subject dancing around his mind. His lack of distracting topics isn't a good thing. Brian's brain is filling with anxious thoughts, some of the self-deprecating variety.

     "An-And because I'm left _alone_ , there isn't much I can do here. I know I'm not in 20█ anymore, but it's just so paralyzingly boring during my off-work hours. The days are all the same monotonous schedule of" He starts to list his schedule off, sounding as bored as ever, "Wake up, eat, go to work, crunch numbers for a machine that I have to build from scratch, again, while barely talking to anyone, then come home, eat, and sit in my room with less-than-nothing to do but fiddle around with the technology in my room, and that's not ever going to get me far because I'm useless at engineering! And I know it's going to be different from what we have in the future, we have so much that everyone here would spontaneously combust!" He slumps further into his chair, twirling his ring around his middle finger and shifting a little bit. "I miss making music, do they even have ukuleles in the States yet? I wouldn't know since I'm on involuntary shut out," Brian groans as he decides to shift out of his curled up position to get closer to the microphone, leaning on his elbows, messing up some of the papers on the desk. "I miss the Internet," He whines, tapping his left hand on the desk.

    Brian's eyes travel around the room and ceiling, landing on different places, "At least the work is keeping me busy." He lets the sentence linger in the silence, hearing some of the hum from the machines across the small town. "It's like a very small amount of tolerance. The technology here in 1944 is pretty much rudimentary, all things considered. Not to brag, I guess, but the Standard Model that I've been using won't exactly be created for the next twenty years or so." He sighs in relief, "At least the laws of the universe haven't changed, which I'm choosing to assume means that I'm in the clear for now! Or at least the whole 'laws of the universe' is up in the air, I can't really tell anymore." He pauses his train of thought, hearing a small hum of electricity, the hair on his arms raising for a millisecond. The sound disappears as quickly as it appeared, leaving Brian in the silence again.

     He lets out a sigh of relief as he realizes the time is dwindling down to his work hours, "I guess we'll find out today! We get to test out the new hunk, which I've lovingly called, 'The Unraveler'. Get it? Because it unravels time!" He smiles to himself, then realizing how dumb the joke is. "After three lonely months, I feel like we're finally ready! Now the first phase is only supposed to chart the tachyon measurements, looking for any more disturbances in spacetime, like the one I rode in on," He sits up in his chair, hearing another buzz of electricity running through the facility, it doesn't feel normal. He shifts uncomfortably before continuing, "The idea behind the whole thing is-" That's when the power goes out, leaving Brian in complete darkness beside the small slivers of light coming from the shuttered windows behind Brian's desk.

     "What the fuck? What is going-" His voice is interrupted by another buzz of electricity, but it was loud enough for the recorder to pick it up. Brian's breathing picks up as the silence continues, "Okay, okay, breathe, Brian, breathe." One of Brian's hands is on his chest, slowing his breathing. "The power in my room has been knocked out," Brian shuffles to the window, peeking through the blinds to check on the town. Some fellow townsfolk are outside of their houses, and the lights on the lab buildings were out. "Looks like the whole town was also taken off the power grid, and I think whatever electromagnetic pulse that fried my spool. I tried to listen to the other spool and I only got distortion." He tries to play it but it only continues the distorted sound, he sighs and puts it down. "The good thing is that we shield our lockers with copper mesh! Which meant I did have an extra spool, and, uh, is it weird that the first thing I did was replace wire spool on the recorder?" He pauses for a beat, "Nah, I'm probably fine. It's just been a while since I've talked, out loud, I guess." He huffs out a little laugh and lets the quiet wash over his ears for a moment, hearing a small buzz coming from the spool. "There's, there's a _weird_  buzz coming from this spool, but it still works so I won't replace it. I wonder what project caused this." Brian sinks back from the desk and leans into his chair, the chair creaking with his weight. He ponders for a moment before realizing there are heavy footsteps coming down the hall, they continue to get louder before he realizes who they are coming for: him.

     His internal panic is cut off by a knock on the door, it's not as hesitant as he would have liked it to be. Brian stops breathing for a moment, hoping that maybe the person will go away and leave him to his recording device and his thoughts. The knock returns soon after the silence, and Brian decides to just get up and answer the door, and wait for the consequences. He opens the door to a guard, not one he recognizes but the patch with a diamond with a tail on his lapel. "Dr. Gilbert?" The guard asks, unsure of if he found the right person. Brian takes a second before answering, "Yes?" The guard shifts, opening up a small amount of space for Brian to be able to walk through, "You're needed down by the computing pavilion."

     Brain raises an eyebrow in shock and surprise, pointing his right index finger at himself, "Me? _Are you sure about that?_ " The guard's expression doesn't change, he sighs and steps aside from the door. "I'm very sure, sir. The Director asked for you personally. You'll get instructions upon arrival. He's assembling a team to figure it out," The guard states, leaning further out into the hallway, as the current matter is pressing. Brian lets out a chuckle, "A team, _huh_? Find a lot of volunteers for that one?" He finishes, cocking his head to the side. No one in this town wants to touch him with a ten-foot pole. "I'm not sure, sir. I was sent to collect you."

    Brian considers the options: 1) go with the guard and fix whatever the Director fucked up, or 2) stay here and wallow in his loneliness. "Mmm...Can I bring my recorder?" He asks innocently, pointing towards the giant machine sitting on the desk. The guard leans into the room and looks at the giant hunk of metal, unsure of what to actually answer; this situation was not in his protocol handbook. "I'm sorry, what?" He asks, looking at the recorder again, surveying the actual effort it will take to lug that thing with them. Brian steps towards it, unsure of if he would be able to get away with dragging the giant, heavy thing with them. "Can I bring it with me? I have an idea." He pats the machine lightly, ignoring the small creak sound that came from the desk, the guard shrugs. "I guess, if you want to lug that thing all the way there-" The guard is interrupted by Brian, "Then hold on just a second. Let me grab a couple of things!" His words are light and airy, as he flounces around the room grabbing various bits and bobs as he mumbles. He starts to mess with the recorder, taking it apart and adding pieces from the pile he made on his desk. He finishes, now holding a smaller-ish device. He presses a button and turns to the guard, "And we're good to go! You see, this lug will send the audio signal through the microphone, onto the tape, which is routed through the device here! It then goes back to the headphones! It should also amplify the EM distortion the closer we get to the disruption! It's like a metal detector!" Brian smiles as he follows the guard down the hallway. Some of the townsfolk stare at Brian, glares adorning their faces like it was his fault. He sighs and listens to the EM levels, they are normal, only pitching slightly as they continue.

     They reach the large dome-like pavilion, walking through the glass doors and entering a room. There isn't anyone but a tall man standing there. Brian can see that he is slim, lanky, and most likely older than him. The man's hair reaches just above his shoulder, a hairstyle that Brian had been taught was unorthodox for this time period. He has a tweed jacket on, the patches not exactly matching up with his actual elbows, and he is wearing sports shoes. It was eccentric, interesting, something to distract himself with. It draws him in, as well as the fact that the man had _volunteered_  to spend time with him! Him! Brian had been isolated for so long and it would feel nice to have someone in his corner. That hope is destroyed when the man turns around and his gaze turns into a glare. Brian shrivels up into himself and steps more into the room, the guard stepping back and leaving them alone. Brian feels like the environment is suffocating, the hatred coming off the man in droves. He starts to fidget with his hands as he steps towards the round table covered in papers. The chalkboard is sitting against the wall, theories already are written on the board with multiple mathematical equations that are more complex than Brian would like to think about. Brian reads over all of the notes in silence, trying to stay out of the man's way.

    The silence is broken when the man turns to Brian, sighs, and puts down the paper he was reading. "Lets go," He says, his voice gruffer than Brian thought it would be. Brian scrambles out of his seat, grabbing the device and headphones before running after him, turning on the device. "Is it okay if I record this?" He asks, his voice quieter than usual. The man looked at him, annoyance all over his hardened expression, "Fine, whatever, awesome. We should get going to stay ahead of this mess." Brian nods, hitting the recording button as he follows the man as their pace increases. It's silent for a moment, Brian whispers, "Well...say hi first." The man looks at him, raising an eyebrow and sighing. The man slowed down slightly, "What do you mean 'say hi'?" Brian lets a small smile slip onto his face as he raises the device higher, closer to the man's head. "The device has a microphone! Say hi! It's kind of like a podca-it's like radio!" He raises it a little higher, hoping that the man will bite.

    The man is silent for a moment, rubbing a hand upon his head, pushing up his hair in annoyance. He had the attitude of someone not being paid enough to deal with him. He must've been forced to do this job, which feels less than great to admit. The silence is grating on his anxiety with the friction of sandpaper until the man bites, "...Hi." Maybe this situation is fixable, maybe Brian can get a friend!

     "And whom is it that we are talking to?" Brian steps a little closer, the man sighs, "Do we really have to do this?" They start to walk again, Brian still jogging slightly to catch up with the man. "C'mon! It's for the record!" He tries to sound sweet, but it mainly comes out as forced. The man huffs, and drags a hand down his face and turns to Brian, looking straight at the recorder. His gaze changes to Brian's face and it switches until he adjusts his glasses. "Fine, whatever. This is Patrick Gill, mathematician for Physics Office of Logistic Yielding Guerrilla warfare Outline for the Nation. We're looking at the electromagnetic anomaly in Rancho, New Mexico. And we're doing it with a suped-up tape recorder and a pair of headphones that make you look like an alien from Flash Gordon. Are we good? Can we actually get back to our job?" Pat huffs, glaring at Brian once again before continuing on. "Yes, fine, okay! Let's go!" He says, jogging to catch up with the taller man. Pat grumbles under his breath, "Thank you." Brian could feel the eye-roll from there, which didn't help his case of making any friends. It's silent and awkward, and Brian doesn't know how to deal with it. "Sorry, I was just joking around," He whispers, looking away from Pat.

    Pat runs a hand through his hair and he sighs, "I can't believe I volunteered to babysit you." Brian scoffs quietly, "Hey, watch it. I can take care of myself. Done as much so far. Sorry for just trying to be nice." Pat eyes him, as if there was something that Brian should know that he caused, something bad. Pat lets out an overly sarcastic laugh, "Oh sure, you're just a queer with the silver spoon. You don't even know the damage you've done, but when your perky ass showed up the Director refocused our whole operation the minute you got here. And I bet that you're the one who caused this," Pat ended his little rant with a smirk. He seems cocky, self-assured, which was starting to be an annoyance. Brian tries to take a deep breathe, pushing the air out of his nose forcefully. "Hey dick, do you work here?" He lifts an eyebrow at the man, trying to hide the thread that the last of his patience is hanging off of.

     Pat is taken aback for a second, "What? What a stupid question. Of course, I work here." The cocky aura around those words have Brian's fists shaking. He huffs, "I asked because, for the last three months, I've been working _alone_ on the most complex machine anyone in this world has ever seen. And thinking back, not once did any of you lift a finger to help me. Y'all shut me out like a damn leper! So, even if it was me, which I know it is not, please excuse me for making on mistake while I am up to my shoulders in the fucking primordial forces of the universe!"

     It's silent, and Brian didn't notice when they had stopped walking, but he does when Pat starts to walk again, sighing, "Come on. The last pulse sighting is up this way." Brian unfurls his fists, taking a sigh and following behind Pat, making sure if the man said anything else he had his headphones on.

    Brian could still hear their footsteps as he listened to the EM distortion. There isn't much else to do but speak, and Brian needs answers. "And what in the fresh hell did I do to y'all anyway? I'm only ever trying to be nice. What did I possibly have done to deserve the entire town to give me the silent treatment?" Pat ignores him, "Come on." His gaze is on Brian as if he was trying to figure out a puzzle.

     Brian stops for a second, which slows the sound of footsteps, Pat looks back at him. "No, I'm serious! You must know! You're the only one who volunteered for this little scavenger hunt. Patrick, you are the first person to _voluntarily_  stand next to me since the first week I got here. And you even treat me like I killed your cat or something! Why?" Brian stares at Pat, hoping that he could at least get an answer. Pat is silent, staring at Brian with an intensity that he hadn't seen before; it's venomous. "All of this silence is because the second you got here the director threw out half of our projects! We were forced to throw out a year and a half of work and start from scratch," He lets out a small growl as his shoulders broaden, shifting into a defensive position facing Brian.

     It all started to make sense, "Ah, yeah, that'll do it to ya."

     Pat's eyebrow shifted in surprise, because shouldn't this mystery man know this information already? "Some people turned out to be unnecessary in this shift to this new project structure so they were let go. The way this place works is that if you are not necessary to the projects you cannot be here. When you came here a lot of good people had to leave town, uproot their families, assume new identities. And for the ones still left in town? We had to watch our friends leave, unable to contact them until the war is over." It's overwhelming for Brian to realize that he was the problem here, they don't do this every new person, they do this to the person who made them lose friends. His hands are shaking and he may start crying, he never wanted this to have been the reason. The laughs start, surrounding all of his thoughts like a vise grip. "I-I-" His voice shakes, but Pat continues to look at him with a steeled and cold expression. "So sue us for having resentment towards the person who caused this. And your behavior: 'trying to be nice' and 'just joking around' is just damn rude at this point." Brian looks away, not wanting to face this head on, wishing the EM distortion would pick up so he could have a distraction from this conversation. The laughter building and he can feel the heaviness weighing down his chest.

     Pat is surprised by the smallness of Brian's voice as he answers, "I didn't know." Anger and confusion just bubble up in Pat's stomach, it made no sense. All personnel knew what they were up to when they were added to the population of Rancho, how did this enigmatic bastard not know? "How do you _not_  know? You were brought in here because of the Director's orders. You should've had an inkling of what bringing your work in here would do!" Pat doesn't miss the small reactionary flinch as he says it, a small part of him feels bad while the rest of him doesn't care. Brian sounds small again, "The way I joined this project, it's...complicated."

     " _Complicated_?" Pat sighs, bringing his hands up to the bridge of his nose as his face scrunches in confusion, and a little bit of aggravation. Brian lets out a small shaky breath, "Well I-" He is cut off by the EM distortion picking up way to fast. He flinches, as his adjusts the headphones and rubs his ears. Pat doesn't miss the way his shoulders shake lightly, how his breathing is picking up, his eyes dart around the hallway. It doesn't look like a healthy reaction, something that Pat could ask about if he still wasn't half angry.

     Before Pat can reply Brian springs back to how he was before, smiling like the sun, "There it is! I can hear it." The sigh of relief goes unnoticed as Brian quickly starts to move around in a semi-circle, trying to find out which way the distortion was coming from. Pat pushes aside the curiosity and follows where Brian's machine is pointed, seeing nothing outside of the wire crossed window. "Where? I don't see anything. And since all the lights are on in the building we should be-" Pat is interrupted by Brian pulling him out of the door and towards the grassy knoll. "It's this way! It's kind of weak but it sounds like the pulse that blasted through my building. We're gonna follow it!"

     Pat didn't argue with being dragged by the hyperactive puppy that is his younger counterpart. He just avoided the gazes sent his way as Brian leads him around Rancho, them slowing down at some point near the center of town, taking a seat at the fountain in the park. The moment is used for each to catch their breath before continuing to walk towards a sound that Pat can't hear.

     The sounds of machinery surround them, being interrupted by Brian, "So what were you working on before?" Pat is a little bit taken aback by the curiosity, everyone in Rancho already knew what Pat's passion project is. It's an odd sensation, but one that Pat could consider embracing. He takes a small glance at Brian, hoping it doesn't catch the shorter man's attention, then replies, "I was the head of a team developing an algorithm for a predictive system using quantum mechanics."

     "That's so cool! You were trying to build a machine based on your choices and math!" Brian smiles at him, seemingly bouncing with interest. Pat was very unsure of how to react to this, so he humbles it a bit, "It's more of well-educated guess kind of way? You can't ask it mundane things like what you're going to eat tomorrow or when you're going to meet a stranger. The questions that work more with the algorithm are ones like: which countries will be in war in a hundred years." It's quiet for a moment until "How close did you get?"

     Pat casts another sideways glance at Brian, raising an eyebrow, "That's... classified information." Brian lets out a little chuckle, "So you can't reveal the government secrets, but is there anything that you can tell me that y'all predicted?" Pat scratches his chin for a moment, racking his brain for all the things that they had run through the algorithm, omitting the joke and test questions that were way too embarrassing to even consider telling this stranger. "We predicted that there would be a polio vaccine by the end of the decade."

     Brian looks a little surprised, "That's really cool, Patrick! Such a shame for FDR though..." After the sentence Brian realizes something and clams up, looking away from Pat. It's confusing, FDR? What is a shame for FDR? How does he know? Is he the reason for it? "What do you mean by that?" He asks, looking at his companion in confusion. Brian starts to fidget with his device, looking away, "I uh, nothing, just a dumb joke. Don't worry about it." Pat sighs, dropping the subject _for_ _now_. "Well when the Director shutdown the project we assumed you found a better algorithm," Pat shrugs.

     Brian lets out a small 'huh' as he connected the dots, "I see how my machine could be a supplant for what y'all were doing. I still didn't know, though." Pat raises an eyebrow at him, sighing, "Listen, I've been here a couple of years. I know the rules like the back of my hand. Whatever the Director says, goes. Even if it's something the majority of us are against. We all don't have to be all peachy about it." Pat narrows his gaze slightly, catching the small shift in Brian's expression.

     There is a huff, "That doesn't mean you can take it out on me." Pat rolls his eyes at the melodramatic man next to him. "I'm allowed to be resentful to _the queer_ that's displacing me," Pat states, letting himself full-heartedly look at Brian. The shake in his compatriot's shoulders is back, he is not looking at Pat with the same ferocity as earlier. "I-I wasn't trying to displace anyone! I didn't mean for this. I just-I just took a job." Pat doesn't know what to make of Brian's shaky words and the fact that his hands are gripping the EM device so hard that his knuckles are white.

     "What? You just 'took a job'? This place isn't _just_  a job. You can't waltz into Christopher Grant's office and ask if they are accepting resumes. No one gets into Rancho by accident. Where are you from? Where did you go to college?" Pat's pointed gaze falls onto Brian's shoulder, his instincts yelling at him someone is watching. "I'm from Baltimore and I went to Johns Hopkins."

     Pat's gaze narrows, "Bullshit. I've had a friend's eyes set on every kid with a twinkle in their eyes for the last five years. You were not a part of that list. When did you graduate?" Brian looks guilty, his gaze moving to the tree to their right. "Twenty si-six." Brian stutters out a response as he starts to pick at some of the wiring on the device.

     "Nineteen Twenty-Six?" Pat looks at him quizzically. Brian nods, his body curling into itself like there is something he must guard with his life. "You received your Ph.D. eighteen years ago?" Pat is skeptical, the kid looks younger than Jenna. There is a small buzz in the air, as Brian jumps up slightly, adjusting the headphones and standing. "Can't this wait until later, I think we got something."

     Pat rolls his eyes and stands up, "Where is it currently?" Brian turns, accidentally hitting Pat's chest lightly. He is taken aback, quickly glossing over the fear on his face and shifting to a look of determination, "I think it's moving!"

     The taller man raises an eyebrow, "What are you talking about?" He lightly takes the headphones off Brian's head and puts them on his. He hears nothing but the muffled noises of his surroundings. "I can't hear anything," Pat is about the take off the headphones before Brian stops him. "It's extremely slow. The thing is that even if you are still as you listen there is still somewhat of a Doppler effect on the EM. I'm going to try and amplify the EM levels so you can hear it." Before Brian can touch anything a loud wave of EM shoots into the headphones and screeches, Pat jumping in surprise. It's disorienting for a moment, Brian has his hands on Pat's shoulders in a grounding motion. "Was that you?" Pat asks, hiding his shame. Brian shakes his head, "No. I think it's growing."

     Brian removes the headphones from Pat's ears, placing them back on his head, shifting one so he can hear Pat. It looks like a practiced motion, something that he should question later. For the next couple of minutes, they shift the headphones to and fro, listening to the EM distortion until Pat comes up with the conclusion, "It's really moving. I think I have something to figure out where it is coming from. If you are capable of clearing up the signal and get me some paper I will be able to make a map." Brian perks up, his excitement getting the better of him. "You have something for this?"

     His somewhat lopsided smile is ignored as Pat works on a small notepad. "You're lucky I do. A while back everyone got _really_  into esoteric forms of radar detection. I was working on this targeted broadcast identifier that I believe I can repurpose to track a similar signal if I substitute this digit here." The taller man stands back and looks at his work, the change in math is good enough that he'll be able to put it into his prototype. "We'll swing by my lab, the machine is there collecting dust in the corner." Pat ignores the little whoop and picks up his calculations as they set their path towards his lab.

     Brian didn't know what to expect when Pat said they were going to his lab. Pat still was surprisingly cold towards him, and that's what he felt the lab would be like. He didn't expect the cat bed and the endless papers shuffled everywhere, a gray cat lounging on an empty food box. Pat shoos the cat back to the bed and walks towards the back of the lab, lifting a box off of a lump of metal that had wires connected to a screen. Pat rolls it out of the corner and wipes the dust off. He presses a few of the button and there is a ding as the machine starts up. Pat types a few lines from the page into the input screen, the machine whirring and then sending out a piece of paper from the side. The vector appeared to overlap with the town.

    They compare the vector and the map, finding that the signal is moving towards Brian's machine. There is a small squabble as Brian starts to panic, fuck this EM. Pat doesn't know what to do, so he does what Allegra does to him. He lightly touches Brian's arm, "It's okay. The signal is moving slow enough that we'll be able to get there and have a couple of hours to spare. If whatever it is is a weapon then we can always find a way to disarm it."

     There is a small nod as Brian seems to breathe, slapping his hands on the sides of his face and looking back at the map. "I'm pretty sure everyone is trying to get the town back online so no one will question if we head towards it. My test site is near the park towards the south side of the city." He fiddles with his machine, "Mind babysitting me a little bit longer?"

     Pat lets himself smile, "It would be my pleasure."

      Pat can't ignore the genuine smile on Brian's face as they exit his lab, petting Charlie on the head before closing the door. Brian confidently leads the way, taking him on a stroll through Rancho as they descend towards the more empty side of town. Fewer people are visible as they come towards Testing Zone 2. They reach the park beforehand, seeing the empty playground. "Empty playgrounds give me the creeps," He moves his hand to play with the back of his hair as he watches Brian mess with his recorder. The silence is broken, "Hmm."

     "What's it doing?" Pat asks, and it comes out like an exasperated parent. Brian chuckles, "That's the weird thing, it's not doing anything." Pat looks at him in surprise, "What do you mean by that?" Brian flicks the device towards Pat, "I mean that once we stepped onto the blacktop all the EM distortion disappeared."

     Pat raises an eyebrow, "Huh." Brian starts to mess with the transparencies of the map and vector, messing with the grid printed underneath. "So what do you think of the idea that we are in the eye of the storm?" Brian jokes, handing the marked transparencies back over. "It would make sense if the distortion just stopped, but the question is: what are we dealing with? I see nothing physical causing the power outage." Pat looks to Brian for an answer, hoping maybe there could be something he was missing. "Well, Mr. Gill, do you believe in ghosts?" Brian says, his laughter leaking through his toothy smile. Pat scoffs, pretending to not find the question laughable. Brian lets out a small laugh, "I don't really believe in them either. I like looking at concrete evidence and things I can prove too much."

     Pat was relieved in that answer, "One of my cousins was really into that occult kind of stuff, she read our palms every Christmas. 'Fortunes are always the best present', she said while breaking out her tarot cards. I'm pretty sure she would be setting up a seance by now." He cracked a grin at the thought of his family, such simpler times. Brian chuckles, "I'm assuming you don't believe in them much either?" Pat nods, "I'm pretty sure the dead would have more important business than moving a rocking chair or throwing a ball."

     "So that means ghosts are knocked off the mental list," Brian says, messing with the headphone wire. Pat lets out a small laugh, "Yeah, I'm glad we got that one off before we move forward."

     Brian kicks a rock out of their path as they sit on a bench, "I have a big question for you: is anything ever straightforward here?"

     Pat lets out a hearty laugh, "Yeah, a couple of weeks in Forty-One things were slow because of the war effort and I was completely bored out of my skull. The good thing is that this thing is it's giving us a heads up, and it's also moving at point-eighty-eight miles per hour. Which gives us a couple of hours before it reaches the test zone."

     Brian sputters for a second, "Wait. When does it reach the test site?" Pat looks at the maps again, then at his watch, "About three, if it keeps moving at its current rate." Pat didn't expect Brian to jump off the bench, pacing for a moment while looking down at his watch. He whispers to himself while coordinating with something in his head while his mouth runs a mile minute with small ideas or possible scenarios of this being the worst thing to happen to him.

     "What are you talking about?" Pat asks, looking at Brian, concern lacing his expression. Brian lets out a whine, pulling his hands down his face, "The test today."

     "What about your test?" Pat sighs, leaning back into the bench. "We're cycling through our field generators today. We're supposed to start the test at Fifteen-Hundred hours on the dot," The answer gives Pat even more questions.

     "Are you suggesting someone is trying to sabotage your test?" Pat runs through multiple scenarios of why that would be so. The information does make sense, Brian is an unknown variable in Rancho. Brian is smart and independent, but there is something otherworldly about him. He is enthused about his work but his knowledge goes beyond what Pat knows is the norm for any Rancho project leader. Brian hadn't known what happened in town but worked for months on his project alone, for months. If Pat had been forced to work alone he would be a thousand times slower with getting results, not that he is stupid but the fact is that he works better with motivation. Pat's stream of thoughts is cut off by Brian, "I don't think anyone is screwing me over, I think it's casualty fucking me up again." He sighs, "I"m sorry, I dragged you into this." Brian plops back down onto the bench next to Pat.

     "Brian, do you _ever_ make sense?" Pat sighs, rubbing his forehead. "Pat, it's a side effect," Brian blows out a sharp breath and leans back into the bench. "What do you mean?"

     Brian shifts, sitting down lower on the bench, "It's a side effect of the Unraveller. It's the residue left over from the first test." Pat huffs, resting his forehead on his fist. Brian takes it as a cue to continue, "The prototype gives off huge waves of electromagnetic radiation when it's turned on. If it all goes to shit this afternoon at the test, it's conceivable this is the backlash. It's not moving towards the test site, it's moving away, but backwards."

     "That...Brian, that sounds like complete and utter bullshit. Your test hasn't even happened yet, why are we dealing with the backlash now? What even is your machine supposed to do?" Pat's question goes unanswered, "Can I see the map?"

     Pat sighs, brings out the transparency from his pocket and holds it up. Brian lets out a small 'thank you' and pulls out a marker. "Can you extrapolate it? Just draw a line as far as you can go on the map," Brian holds out the marker to Pat and the taller man takes it. Pat places the map on his lap and makes a line on the map, using his knee as a hard surface. He pops the lid back on the marker and looks at the map, "The blowback is traced pretty far. Do you have a theory why it runs through Philidelphia, and towards Cincinnati? I'm sure there is an explanation for this, possibly strange phenomenon has appeared there too."

     Pat doesn't miss the small, "Fuck," that comes from Brian.

     "Brian," Pat puts the map on the bench, "You're hiding something from me and it's starting to get tiring."

     Brian fidgets where he sits, looking away from Pat. "We, we've got some 'cutting-edge' technology now. Something...none of you have seen before."

     Pat huffs, "Brian. If this new technology is what's causing this shitstorm I would rather be told what it is. You're not magic, Brian. You're a scientist who entered this town with some tech that not even _I_ have been briefed on. There are so many secrets to your existence here. And you are now somehow connected to something happening in Philidelphia? I don't know what in the hell you would be working on that would cause a disturbance of this size with a backlash that I can't even start to decipher how it works. Brian-"

     "It's a time machine."

     "What?"

     "The Unraveller is a time machine and I traveled here with it."

     Pat is silent, running through the actual implications of what Brian said. The possibilities are screaming in his ear, it's an odd excuse to make. Why lie like this? Except, why does it suddenly make everything make sense? It puts all the puzzle pieces together. His counterpart's lack of formal speech patterns, his lack of masculine appearance, his utter contentness to look like he does. The future is an enigma but at least the question of if America becoming more accepting became true.

     The silence is eating away at Brian's nerves and the pondering expression on Pat's face has been there for what feels like a minute, Brian sits up and slides away from Pat. He chews on his lip and picks on his nails and waits for a response, hoping it isn't as bad as the one on the barge. His spine goes rigid when a shiver passes up his back. Brian pushes down all of his thoughts, hoping that maybe Pat doesn't do the worst thing that comes to mind.

     Brian jumps when Pat finally responds, "Well, I guess that explains why Grant wouldn't need an algorithm to predict the future when he sees it first hand." Pat looks over at Brian, his gaze is not as sharp as before.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! It means a lot to me! (Also, please don't show BDG or Mischa Stanton this.) [ My original twitter thread with all my ideas.](https://twitter.com/firebranddad/status/1086515261501517824?s=21)


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